Friday, November 28, 2014

Email is not one of my favourite tasks. It’s a never-ending
pile and it’s always in danger of collapsing on me. I’ve tried many strategies
to manage it but nothing is working so far.

There are four sorts of email I do like – emails from
friends, emails from people who love to read or write, emails from my editor
and emails from kids whose school I’ve visited.

I always encourage kids to email me. I love to hear they
enjoyed my session or that they like to read and sometimes, not very often, I
get an email from a kid who likes to write.

Two days ago an email arrived headed: Can you help me with
my story? from a girl at a school I had visited last month. I responded to say
I would love to but I was drowning in work for the next two days and I would
get back to her then.

This afternoon I opened the email attachment. It wasn’t a
lot – a beginning and an end. Her problem was finding what went in the middle.

The writing was wonderful and beautifully crafted. I sat
there stunned.

Sure, it needed a little polishing. It was obviously the
work of a young person and I would have chosen different words from my own wider
adult vocabulary but I know she’ll find those herself if she keeps writing. She
doesn’t need me to pre-empt that.

I don’t know how old she is, I would guess maybe Year 5,
probably Year 6. What she had was laid out with headings – beginning,
complication and ending – the things she had learned in class. I do know that I’d
be pleased with myself if I had written that beginning and end - the
immediately engaging character, the perfectly timed humour, the visual action
scene - and in the end, a killer last line.

I edited a little, explaining why – pruning an
unnecessary sentence, removing a piece of “telling” and correcting the speech attribution
punctuation. I wasn’t game to touch anything else. And it didn’t need me to. Finally, I made a list of suggestions for how to find
the story for the missing middle. I hoped she might share
the next installment with me.

I polished lightly because it was already shining. The
shiniest thing I’ve ever found in my email.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

You know how when you visit friends, some are super
organised and have the coffee and cake ready but others, although just as
welcoming, are still trying to find where they put the coffee and whether there
are any biscuits left in the cupboard that will do instead of cake? Today, as a
blog tour host, I’m the latter.

Snap Magic is the sequel to Aussie Chomp Pond Magic and continues the
magic-plagued adventures of twelve-year-old Lily Padd.

I wondered whether Angela imagined herself as a future
author or illustrator when she was Lily Padd’s age. So I asked her:

I liked to write
poetry and song lyrics at 12 and desperately wanted to be an
artist/illustrator. I tried writing a novel at 12, but set it in the USA,
because I didn't think anyone would want to know about a NZ kid. So I failed
that one, as I knew nothing about the US.

A Review: Snap Magic by Angela Sunde

Lily Padd has problems and they’re much bigger than her
embarrassing name. First there’s the hair on her chin and the others that soon
follow.

She’s on the run from Rick, the bra-strap snapper, but it’s
not the painful flick that bothers her. It’s anyone discovering that she doesn’t
even wear a bra yet.

Her beautiful dress for the Halloween Dance is ruined by her
terrible twin 6-year-old sisters. Mrs Swan, the witch next door, offers a
solution. Lily’s had trouble with magic before but she’s willing to take
another chance.

It gets worse. When Mum becomes a seller for Snap ‘n’ Pack,
Lily has to dodge mean-girl Ellie Middleton at school and in the Middleton home,
when Mum drags her there to help with a party demonstration.

Still the hair keeps growing. Other people around her are
looking a little hairy too.

Lily knows it’s magic. Ellen has worked it out too and she’s
going to tell Lily’s secret at the Halloween Dance and destroy her chances with
the new boy.

That’s the biggest problem of all.

Told in easy to read short chapters, Snap Magic is perfect
for tween girls. Lily is a feisty character who refuses to be defeated by the
troubles and challenges thrown at her. Even magical ones. With the help of her
best friend, Maureen, she faces them all.

While Snap Magic deals with mature themes such as bullying, trust,
friend and parent relationships, developing adolescence, and preoccupation with
physical appearance, it does this with gentle and sensitive age-appropriate humour.
This book could be a starting point for first mother-daughter discussions.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Every day I spend up to an hour
hitch-hiking from website to website. It’s good for my soul and it keeps my
brain buzzing. My starting point might be a link that turns up in my morning
Feedly. Or it might be a link someone posts on Twitter or Facebook. Or an article in my StumbleUpon feed.

One blog post or website always leads to another. Sometimes I jump via a link within
the post, sometimes via a popular post in the sidebar or a category, even from a
tweet displayed in the site Twitter steam. It reminds me of the two weeks the Love
of my Life and I spent motorhoming around Canada. Before we could recover from
one sign-posted Scenic Viewing Spot, another signpost appear. There's always somewhere interesting to go on the net.

I thought I’d share some of my journeys and the
things I find on the way.

Today I was looking at picture book courses. My first
picture book, Sad The Dog, will be published by Walker Books Australia next
year and I feel rather spoilt. It’s a format that’s alien to me. The idea came to me reasonably fully-formed and with some pushing and poking by my excellent editor, it easily fell into
shape. I was lucky.

But I need more than luck to write a second one and to learn
more about the craft of picture writing is on my To Do List.

This afternoon, I opened the Saved For Later folder in my Feedly.
I follow the Plot Whisperer blog and its host, Martha Alderson, has a “Write
and Sell a Picture Book” series of vimeos with Jill Corcoran.[Viewing Spot 1:The Plot Whisperer]. I heard Jill speak at the Australia New Zealand SCBWI
Conference and she gave me more good advice at a subsequent manuscript
assessment session. That was for a YA but I was impressed with her considered
feedback. I was keen to have the advice of both Jill Martha on writing and
selling picture books.

Off I went to the website. [Viewing Spot 2: How to Write and Sell a Picture Book ] Unfortunately
I missed the half price weekend by a few days and the full price of $125, although
excellent value, is a stretch for my budget at the moment. So that’s still on
the To Do List. I’ll be hinting in the appropriate direction for a Christmas
present.

Let me quote my
friend and 80+book author Kathleen Duey: Almost no one expects musicians to get
good on an instrument without years of lessons, books, years of practice. There
is a similar learning curve for writing. (read full post here)

Limori: People are hiding. The City is changing hands again.
The old families, the boys in the cliffs, the people in South End and all the
Eridians …all of them are in danger now. I am afraid for all of them.

I had this wonderful sense of place, history and exoticism.
I might be wrong but I’m going to find out. I tracked back through Kathleen’s
books to find the series I was looking for: The Resurrection of Magic. Book 1 is
Skin Hunger and book 2, Sacred Scars.

One title was familiar. I almost read Skin Hunger, seven
years ago. In 2007 it came into The Reading Stack where I review books. It
landed in my In Tray but another reviewer was seduced by the cover and asked if
she could take it. I handed it over without even reading the Press Release.

Friday, September 26, 2014

You know that feeling when your brain is buzzing, the
lights are flashing and the world is greener than ever and you can't sleep
because you just have to write it all down....

And often you can't
because there are too many ideas and smells and images and nowhere near enough
words? So you just sit there and dream.

There's a word for that feeling and I found it today. I have spent most of the
afternoon learning to spell it.

It's
an Inuit word which translates to: “He does not know which way to turn
because of the many seals he has seen come to the ice surface.”

As
a writer I suffer from chronic puijilittatuq. I would be so much more
prolific and probably a much better writer if I could only get this problem
under control. Not a hope though. I've been like this all my life.

I'd
like to know how to pronounce it. Does anyone have any ideas? Even Google failed
me. All it had to offer was it's not a valid Scrabble word and there are no
images to match it on Flickr. I could have guessed that!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Book week has an osmotic way of seeping into the weeks
around it, whether its preparation or pre and post book Week school visits. It’s
an exhausting time. Most of my commitments are in Sydney so it’s a four hour
round trip on the train each day. But I love it. The kids are the best reward ever.

I never intended to visit schools. I was comfortable and
experienced speaking in front of a hall full of adults but a library full of
children terrified me. How could I possibly be entertaining? They would laugh
(I have since discovered this is the pinnacle of success – when you can get a
roomful of kids to laugh!).

But the year my first book was released, the Primary School
English Teachers Association (PETA) decided to run a course to encourage debut
authors to present in schools and I was invited to attend.

The message in Val Noake’s opening speech spoke directly to
me. She said you can write in your office
and go nowhere and kids will still love your work or go into schools and use
your persona as an author to encourage children to read and write. How could I ever
even think of foregoing that?

Over two days I learned from the experts. I remember
sessions by Sue Whiting, Deb Abela and Jeni Mawter. Then I was paired with a “mentor”
who helped me prepare for my first school visit. If I wasn’t already on convinced,
working with Deb Abela (enthusiastic, talented and all-round lovely person) would
have persuaded me.

To my surprise, I found I loved school visits. Even the “hat-flipper”
couldn’t faze me. There’s usually one in a session – the pre-bored child who
doesn’t want to be there and fiddles with his/her hat or shoe-laces or pen or
whatever they just found in their pocket. They became my motivation. If I could get them
engaged, the presentation was a win!

Just this week, yet another instance confirmed why I love
working with kids and literature. After a large Year 3 – 6 session, a group of
kids crowded around to ask one more question or share their current WIP. One
small boy, probably Year 3, waited until everyone else had left. Then he
blurted: ”I’m going to try hard. I’m going read all your books. I’m going to
try really, really hard.” I guessed that my books would be a struggle for him
and we had a talk about reading in general and how much fun it might be to read
alternate paragraphs with mum or dad.

After he left the librarian said: “I never thought I would ever
hear him say that.” I asked if he would be able to read my books and she shook
her head. “He’s not at his reading year level yet.” So my work was not done. I
hadn’t put the right book in his hand. I had inspired but once the book was
opened, he would probably give up.

I often show kids the first book I wrote, Ratbags, part of an
Aussie Schoolbooks leveled reading set for Year 3. I figured it would be just
right, especially with its wonderful quirky illustrations by Peter Viska. So I
gave it to the librarian and asked her to tell my newest fan that I had donated
it to his library because I was so impressed with his determination to get
reading and I had specifically asked for him to be given the first chance
to borrow it.

Monday, August 25, 2014

When Tim Pegler (whose 2010 novel Five Parts Dead remains a
favourite of mine) tagged me to share 7 lines from page 7 or 77 of my current
WiP, I was keen to see what snippet I would find. Little did I know it was
really a challenge – a dare to see if I was brave enough.

I should have known it wasn’t going to be as easy as it
first sounded. Especially after I read Tim’s post about how when he counted out the lines, he had to wrestle with writerly
scruples because he wasn’t happy with what he found there.

The power of the force urging an edit is strong in this one
too. But then I decided that although editing never ends - same thing, fifty
times over, fifty times better - it’s got to start somewhere.

So I bit the bullet and am baring the lines, as is, bleached
bones and all. I am working on two manuscripts.

Here is the YA (page 77):

The mist dissolved and the shadow
grew thin ephemeral arms, legs and wings. It perched on the sea wall like a
pale goblin.

Rebekah could see it was not a
ghost. Ollie was right about that but it wasn’t an illusion either. It was
something old and dark, dangerous and uncertain.

“I have to go."

“Will you come back?” it asked.

She knew she shouldn't.

And here is the Middle Grade (page 7)

He sat on his rock as the sun rose and watched the sugar ants
counting. Burroc liked to listen to them
work. Numbers flew in all directions.
The short chubby one was counting children, three others were counting
food and one was counting the counters.

“How many?” Burroc asked.

“Shhh,” chorused the ants.

“I lost count,” a little one wailed.

And so to share - I tag the following fabulous writerous
types - Richard Newsome (The Billionaire series), Aleesah Darlison (Ash Rover
series, Unicorn Riders series) , Alison Reynolds (A Year with Marmalade, A New
Friend for Marmalade) and Jackie Hosking (The Croc and the Platypus). I’m looking forward to peeking into their
WiPs.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Every writer I’ve met (and that’s heaps) secretly wants to
write a picture book (including me). I think it’s something to do with the
magic of distilling a story into a small number of perfect words and then
having an illustrator perform even more magic on them.

Recently at SCBWI ANZ Conference 2014 I attended an In Conversation session
about the creative process for a new Walker Books Australia picture book, TheCroc and the Platypus. The session featured Jackie Hosking (author), Marjorie
Crosby-Fairall (illustrator) and Sue Whiting (editor). After the session was
over, I wanted to know more. So I am particularly pleased to be a stop on the
Croc and Platypus blog tour and to have the chance to ask Jackie and Marjorie
some questions of my own.

Jackie, we hear
all the time that rhyming picture books are incredibly difficult to write
although you obviously have a talent for it.

Was there a portion
of text that you had to work extra hard at?

The difficult thing about writing in rhyme is refusing to
compromise on the right word to suit the rhyme or the meter.

In the first line of the second verse – there are three
verses in all, I compromised, and while the whole story was accepted by Walker
Books, that line wasn’t. What was interesting is that I didn’t like that line
either. Here’s how the original line looked…

Platy said with a smile, to the
cool Crocodile

“I have an idea to present….

No one calls a platypus, Platy, it sounds forced. One
suggestion was to change the animal from a Platypus to something else. This was
not acceptable to me; it had to be a platypus as it represented the soft
pussy-cat character from The Owl and the
Pussy-Cat. I didn’t voice my concern
at the time because I knew with some effort, I could fix it. And I did. The
line now reads…

The platypus smiled, saying after
a while,

“I have an idea to present…

The perfectionist in me struggled a bit with the fact the
‘smiled’ and ‘while’ are not perfect rhymes but I had to let that go because
that was a very small sacrifice to make and it allowed me to keep the platypus
in the story.

Was there a portion
that just fell into place? Why do you think this happened?

The first verse is pretty much unchanged from the original
though I did modify one line. This changed from…

And packed it all up in the boot

to

And bundled it up in the boot

‘Bundled’ is a stronger verb, more descriptive and it
allowed me to get rid of the word ‘all’ and as an added bonus it complimented
the word ‘trundled’ which is found at the beginning of the poem.

I’m not sure why it fell into place so easily. I think
having The Owl and the Pussy-Cat as a
template forced my hand into choosing particular words. I really wanted to
emulate Lear’s rhyme and meter with no compromise, easier said than done! At
the most basic level, for instance, the animals had to have names consisting of
one and three syllables respectively. And the three syllable name had to have
the stress fall on the first syllable. An echidna, for example would not fit
the meter as the stress falls on the middle syllable which would not do at all.

How long did you
spend working on this book from first word to submission?

I wrote the first draft in early 2011 and sent it to Walker
in May of that year. In 2012 I was awarded a Maurice Saxby Mentorship where I
was able to utilise the wisdom of many experienced professional. During that
time I worked on The Croc and the Platypus and as a result improved it. I sent
the improved version to Walker in May 2012 so in a way I have two submission
dates.

What research did you
need to do for this book?

Well I obviously needed to know The Owl and the Pussy-Cat inside out and I also wanted to include
as many Australian icons as I could, given the brevity of the poem.

As I’ve used Uluru as the camping spot I was interested to
know its meaning. This is included in the glossary at the back of the book
along with a description of the other Australian icons mentioned in the story,
things that non-Australians may not be familiar with.

Marjorie, Was
there a portion of text that immediately visually appealed to you?

Well, Sue Whiting from Walker Books asked me to present a
rough sketch for one spread to make sure we were all “on the same page” before
I launched into creating the storyboard roughs for the entire book. She suggested
the text:

They barbecued fish,
their favourite dish,
Then gobbled some lamingtons too.

This text was immediately appealing and ideas sprang to mind
very easily. I could readily imagine two fat and happy friends lounging around
by a campfire as the sun was setting. In fact, the rough didn’t change much
from my very first scribbles—the only change was the addition of the fleece
tent. I originally had the fleece still rolled up as they had received it from
the shearers.

At the time same time I sent Walker the rough for the
following spread:

And under the gloss of
the bright Southern Cross
They danced beside Uluru…luru,
They danced beside Uluru.

This was another idea which popped into my head fully formed
and didn’t change at all from the first rough. I remember I was cooking dinner
when I had the idea of how the Croc and the Platypus would dance, I ran into my
studio and jotted it down in my notebook, and ran back out before dinner
burned!

Do you do the illustrations in story order?

I’m pretty systematic when I work. I chip away until I have
thumbnail sketches for the layouts of all the spreads. When I move on to the
next stage—storyboard roughs—I DO often get the easier spreads out of the way
first. By the time the final roughs are finished, I usually have a pretty good
idea of where I’m going with the illustrations so I can illustrate out of
order.

With The Croc and the
Platypus, the first finished artwork was the spread where the shearer meets
the Croc and the Platypus. Donna Rawlins, the art director at Walker Books, had
asked me fairly early on to send her one colour spread so she could see what I
had in mind for the final style. I chose this spread because it had the main
characters, a human figure, and very importantly it was a good sample for
showing the colour palette. The story occurs throughout one day, so the
lighting and colours need to change to reflect that change in time. This spread
is midway thorough the day so the colours are a sort of “base point”—the earlier
colours are a bit “cooler” and lighter and the later colours a bit “hotter” and
darker. But, hey, maybe I’m the only one who notices that!

Was there a portion of text that you found more challenging
to illustrate?

Initially, the more difficult spreads were anything to do
with the Ute! I’m not exactly a “car person” so I didn’t have an intuitive
response . However, once I found a Holden Ute I liked, it almost became another
character with a personality so I found it much easier to draw.

What research did you need to do for this book?

There was actually a lot of research required. I had to find
out about Holden Utes, Crocs and Platypus, Sheep, Outback landscape colours and
vegetation and many other things. Of course I’m not trying to represent any of
these things realistically, but it all goes into the stew and informs the final
work.

Thanks for dropping by, Jackie and Marjorie. I wasn't surprised to hear how much work goes into a picture book. I know from experience how hard those few words are. Much harder if they have to rhyme. But I was surprised at the research involved. As author of historical fiction, research is a familiar part of my writing process. I had no appreciation of how much research, by both the author and illustrator, can go into a picture book.

Friday, July 25, 2014

One of the sessions I attended at the Australia-NZ 2014
SCBWI Conference gave the advice “love your publisher”. It was definitely a
love-fest at this month’s inaugural Walker Books Australia (WBA) Author-Illustrator
Conference. And what was not to love?

It was a time for catching up with old friends - too many to
name – and meeting new people like debut author Tonya Alexander whose book Nymph (the first book in the Love Oracle series) was in my reading
stack. It was on my to-buy list until I won it as a door prize at the South
Coast Illawarra CBCA Annual Dinner.

It was also an introduction to the people who form the
Publishing, Marketing and Sales sections of WBA. So brilliant to able to put a
face to a name or Twitter handle. Each section overviewed what they did and the
ways they could help their authors and illustrators. How terrific is that? I’ve
always hesitated to bother anyone but they're happy to be bothered!

Paul McDonald from The Children’s Bookshop was inspiring, charming
and knowledgeable (as always) and presented a session on how creators could
interact with bookstores. The room buzzed afterwards as ideas and experiences
were exchanged. A number of authors decided they needed to move house closer to
The Children’s Bookshop.

Ruth Ellis, Children’s Book Buyer at Dymocks spoke about how
Dymocks selects it children’s and YA list and the strategies and programs they
use to reach their customers.

At lunch everyone played a networking “game” where two of
each author/illustrator’s books were provided to be given to a fellow Walker Books
creator, to encourage working together and co-promoting. That’s easy for me to
do. Just at look at the awesome author and illustrator talent!

My “prize” in this game was Sally Murphy’s beautiful new
verse novel Roses are Blue. I read it
that night. Having cried in Pearl Verses
the World and Toppling, I set
myself a challenge with Roses are Blue.
I failed.

The first Conference was all very wonderful - the people,
the product, the creators. It was a thrill to be a small part of the
wonderfulness.

The
Illustrators Showcase. It was spectacular. I still have a
severe case of artistic talent envy.Professor
Ernest Bond’s Session Going to the Common
Core USA. I was impressed with how a list of ten
conceptual points became concrete understandable points when paired with an analysis
of an appropriate picture book. I even discovered one I have to have – Last Laughs Animal Epitaphs ( J. Patrick
Lewis and Jane Yolande)

Tania McCartney and Kathryn Otoshi’s session Getting
into the Marketplace. Informative and heart-warming.
Tanya is a one-woman dynamo whose unerring vision of herself as a writer/illustrator
and dedication to achieving that dream was inspiring. Kathryn’s beautiful
picture books and the wonderful success they have had in schools as
anti-bullying resources was inspiring too. So that was the message for this
session. Be inspired.

The
Pitch Sessions. Where two good friends nailed it and each attracted
an editor’s attention.

Performance Poetry by Stephen Whiteside. Stephen read a laugh-out-loud poem from his new book The Billy that Died with its Boots On

Book
Launches. For the first year in my six years as an author I
haven’t had a book to launch (family health issues) but I really enjoyed being
part of someone else’s launch. I bought two books:

Crocand Platypus (Jackie Hosking and Marjorie Crosby-Fairall). This a rollicky read-along rhyme to the meter of The Owl and
The Pussycat. It was a rollicky launch too! I’m going to give this signed book
as a thank you gift to Balgownie Public School library when I visit later this
month. Not only were they gracious when I cancelled three!! times due to family
ill-health, but they re-booked me as soon as I resumed school visits. I
appreciate the support.

Woodlands
Whiskers: A New Pet (Gabriel Evans). This beautiful
lift-the flap board book is the perfect gift for newest beautiful person in my
family – Annabel Louise. I think it might just be her very first book. I’m sure
when she’s a bit older she’ll love the mouse Gabriel Evans drew on the back.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

One of the best things about the writing process is the writerly friends
I have made along the way, so I am especially pleased to be tagged by Rebecca
Newman, writer for children and editor of the wonderful Alphabet Soup
blog where you can find book reviews and stories by young
readers and writers.

On my one and only visit to Perth (I’m always secretly hoping someone will invite me to another festival there) we caught up for dinner, as Facebook friends always do when their paths eventually cross, and talked kid lit until very, very late.

My WIP is a magical realism young adult novel. It’s the hardest thing
I’ve ever written and I’ve been working on it for four years. I wrote it
in bits and pieces around the final three books in the Samurai Kids
series and the severe illness of my youngest son and my own cancer
treatment. It has not been an easy writing process.

And it
has a protagonist with cancer. The playing field was different when I began to write it. Four years ago there were very few cancer novels
and a year ago cancer certainly wasn’t on my personal horizon. This manuscript has truly
tested me. I questioned whether there is still a place for it, given the recent
spate of YA characters with cancer and I answered I think so.
Magical realism makes it different. When I was diagnosed and things were grim
there for a while, I questioned whether I could even write about cancer and
again I answered I think so. I found that it helped me through some
tough spots.

A main character: Source:unknown

How does my work differ from others in my genre?

I am not sure my work has a genre. I write anything and everything – if
words are involved, I want to be part of it. The majority of my work to date is
middle grade historical fiction. Next year my first picture book will be
released and my almost complete WIP is Young Adult. My next project is middle
grade fantasy. I think I link ideas together differently, like writing
historical fiction set in samurai Japan where the characters each have a
disability.

Why do I write what I write?

Oh good, an easy question. I write what the characters tell me to write.
If I don’t listen, and I tried it once, they plague me and prod me until I
can’t sleep at night and am forced to get up at 2 am to write down their story.

How does my writing process work?

I believe writing is a habit and I write at least 500 words every day.
Often they are rubbish and die a horrible death the next morning but usually
the manuscript progresses. I write and edit as I go. I am always going back to
start at the beginning again. I feel that keeps me in the zone as I move
forward and incrementally improves what I’ve already written. I often write the
last chapter after the first chapter because I am not a plotter, so I need to
know the direction I am going in. It doesn’t usually change a great deal when I
get there. I have to work very hard at the 67% mark because by then I know what
happens all the way through to the end and I am eager to start something new
and different.

I knew I was a writer when I finished my first manuscript. Before that I
was forever starting grand projects and never finishing. I am also a believer
in a shower as the magical solution to plot problems and the source of story
ideas. Recently, I discovered Scrivener, so my writing process has become more
organised. The only thing more fun than reading and writing is reading and
writing technology.

Here are my tags. I have accidentally cheated a little – for someone who
claims to love maths and find mathematical patterns in her writing, I've
failed basic adding up. I have four tagees instead of three.

Jeffery Doherty

I met Jeffery
Doherty at the Kids and YA festival at the NSW Writer’s Centre. Jeff
is a talented writer and illustrator. When I created some interactive teacher
resources to support my novel Polar Boy, Jeff took one
look at my artistic efforts and insisted on painted the pictures for my igloo
building quiz. You can see his work here. I was privileged to be an early
reader of Jeff’s 2014 debut novel “Paper Magic”, the empowering story of
Marina, a girl in a wheelchair who finds strength and friends through magic
origami paper. You can find Jeff and his blog here.

Michelle Morgan

Michelle Morgan is a former librarian, author and playwright
who lives in my local area, although we only met recently at the Illawarra CBCA
dinner. Michele’s first book, Racing the Moon, set in Sydney during
the Depression, was published in 2014. It's on my desk to read. I've got some catching up as she recently completed the sequel.
You can find Michelle’s blog here.

Peter Macinnis

I first
met Peter Macinnis, although he didn’t meet me, when I reviewed one
of his award-winning non-fiction books, The Backyard Naturalist. Peter writes science and history and often the two overlap. I
have since acquired a personal collection of Peter’s books because he has a
knack for making science accessible for young readers and me (who never paid any
attention to science at school). I follow him around on Facebook because I find
his posts interesting and often funny. There’s an inspiring amount of writerly
detail on his website, so I recommend a visit there and to his blog.

Helen Armstrong

Helen Armstrong is another writer who lives not too far from
me. I met Helen when were both presenters at the Sutherland Shire Writers
Unleashed Festival. Helen is a lady of many talented hats (and a lot of
energy!) – president of the Sutherland Fellowship of Australian Writers,
scientist, writer of short stories ‘and the occasional outbreak of poetry’, and a lover of mythology, fantasy and satire. Helen
will post on her blog hop on her Facebook page.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Tuesday morning and I'm sitting down to work after the long weekend. I have a quick check of Facebook first and discover last weekend Penelope Davie mentioned that she had been to Henry Lawson Festival of the Arts at Grenfell and in the main street was a plaque with my name on it. What a wonderful memory to start the week with. Thanks Penelope. I searched out the original blog post I did about how that came to be and enjoyed reminiscing so much I decided to repost it.

I've only ever reposted once before (special circumstances) but recently I've been enjoying a series of reposts by Michael Gerard Bauer. I missed them first time round so perhaps similarly someone else will enjoy my revisit here. You'll have to scroll down Michael's blog to find the reposts as they have inspired a spate of new new blog posts. I hope this repost works like that for me!!

Here goes:
Being a children’s author can be quite confronting. Embarrassing even. The questions some primary students ask range from jaw-dropping to ego shattering. And on other occasions they can make you feel like Master of the (Writing) Universe. I thought I’d blog about one of my MOTWU moments. I don’t want to mention the others!!!

Back in June 2008 I was guest of honour at the Henry Lawson Festival of the Arts in Grenfell. Grenfell is a tiny rural town in the central west of NSW, population 2200, the birthplace of Henry Lawson. The weekend long Festival is very prestigious. It’s the longest running arts festival in Australia and past guests of honour have included Patrick White, Di Morrissey and Thomas Keneally!

So how did I get this gig? Well, I’m not proud. I’m willing to admit I was the Guest of Honour to Be Named Later. Last Minute actually. TV actor Simon Westaway was the original choice and when he had to cancel, the rush was on to find someone arts-related who would come to no-airport Grenfell at extremely short notice. My sister, who lives on a small farm in the area, happened to mention me. Even if she wasn’t the best sister in the world this would have immediately earned her the dedication in Shaolin Tiger!‘My sister is an author,” she said. “And she visits here all the time.”

So there I was, pretending to be a famous person of literary note. Crowning the beauty queens. Cutting the ribbon. Keynote speaker at the dinner. Presenting trophies and medallions. Conducting TV interviews. Chatting with the writers from Underbelly who were accepting a scriptwriting award. Grenfell opened its heart to welcome me. I think the townspeople were sort of proud that I had a local connection. I might not have been the ilk of the previous guests yet I was an honorary ‘one of their own.”

But my really big moment was absolutely huge. It’s one of the highlights of my writing career. I was sitting on the official dais (trying to look official and literary!) watching the street parade. Around the corner came a local primary school all dressed up as my Samurai Kids. Banging gongs and waving swords and banners. They marched down the main street and when they reached the dais their teacher yelled “Stop”. “Yes Sensei,” they responded.Then they turned to face me and bowed, Japanese style.

I stood and bowed too. And I bawled my eyes out. To be honest, I bawled my eyes out again writing this. It’s still such a vivid and emotional memory.There are many times when I am asked why I don’t write proper books. Books for adults or older readers. Well one day I might write those too but in writing for kids, I am totally fulfilled. I do write proper books. The people who ask that question don’t understand the craft of writing for children. And they certainly don’t understand how wonderful young readers can make their authors feel. It’s real magic.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

I've heard it said you shouldn't count the words. Write what you want to. Let the story do the driving. Don't be distracted by the numbers. In a perfect Utopian literary world - and we all know there's no such thing - that might work for some. I always count the words. I think the key is to be aware of the word count but not to worry about it.

Sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds. While writing my first YA novel, I was aware the words were piling up much too quickly. Painfully aware because I was writing outside my comfort zone. But I kept going. I knew if I put the complete story on the page, I could edit out what didn't need to be there and still retain the structure. If I tried to adjust the pacing would be all wrong and this is a book where the chronology of change is important. I know my writing bad habits will make it easy to reduce the number of words. I write a lot of fluff and over fill that screams to be deleted the first time I redit.

Words counts are critical to me on a maintenance basis. They establish my writing habit. I write 500 words a day. Every day. I'm not a fast writer so sometimes even that's hard. When I'm talking about output I'm happy to include anything creative I write. Even this blog post. It's not about getting the story completed, its about muscle memory for good writing habits.

AR BookFinder: Samurai Kids #2: Owl Ninja

For the first draft I like to know where I'm going word count wise even though I don't let it dictate to me. I know when I begin to redraft I will inevitably cut and add large chunks so at this stage all I need to do is head in the right direction.

How do I know what a reasonable word count is? I ask the books I love and respect, the ones I wish I had written and occasionally, one that I did! I look up the word counts of any of these books with similar genre and target readership on the AR Bookfinder site.To find the word count search by author or title and when the book is displayed, click on the tile for more details including the word count.

Samurai Kids #8: Black tengu

My book is magical realism so I've got some leeway. Fantasy novels are often twice the word count of realistic novels and at 90,000 (after 5 edits) I'm currently sitting in between. I can go either way and no doubt I will in both directions before I am happy.

I have strategies I use when I edit. Some of these raise the word count (like upping the conflict and mending plot holes) and some whittle it away (like removing adverbs,redundancy and extraneous, tightening description and deleting unnecessary dialogue). But I never focus on any particular one for the sake of word count.

Somehow in the end it ultimately all comes together. Except once. The last Samurai Kids book, Black Tengu, was too short. I suspect I was in too much of a hurry to tell Sensei's story and I left a big chunk of it inside my head. But that meant when I had to expand, the words all there ready and waiting. Fasted 4,000 words I ever wrote!

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

It’s about patterns, logic, beauty and
infinity. The best way to demonstrate this is with fractals and specifically The Mandelbrot Set discovered as recently
as 1980.

The
Mandlebrot set is a pattern that’s self replicating and unique, its simple and
its complex and its beautiful. It seemingly
goes on forever.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org

It’s been called
the definition of infinity and the “thumbprint of God”. I’m inclined to think
the latter is true as you don’t have to look very far in the physical world to
find Mandlebrot designs – carved in stone on Indian temples, under the
microscope, in the fronds of the weedy sea dragon – the list is as endless as a
fractal.